Eat, drink, sleep, repeat: London’s best dog-friendly restaurants March 26, 2025 Last week Franco Manca announced that they have become ‘dog friendly’. This a welcome turnaround for the restaurant group that turned away a guide dog from one of their venues in 2018. Fortunately, this shameful incident led to my meeting with Dave Kent, the blind gentleman who required his trusty friend Chad to lead him [...]
Libby’s Naked Wines diary: I visit Oxford’s trendy new rooftop March 26, 2025 This week in Libby’s Naked Wines diary, our wine columnist visits Oxford Simon Drake glides up to me in a jacket that looks and feels like he has skinned the Velveteen Rabbit. Indeed, it is so soft I pause for just longer than is potentially acceptable to stroke his velvety arm – before he gently [...]
Libby’s Naked Wines diary: why South African wine still wins March 19, 2025 This week our Naked Wines columnist Libby Brodie touches down for a wine adventure in South Africa Even as someone who tours wine estates around the world for my job, rarely have I visited one on the same jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring, gob-smacking scale as South Africa’s Vergelegen Wine Estate. The Western Cape of South Africa already [...]
Hannes Myburgh’s Meerlust Estate is wine tasting paradise March 18, 2025 Meerlust Rubicon was the first wine I bought en primeur. This is the process of buying wine while it is still aging, ahead of it coming to market. It means securing sought-after bottles at potentially lower prices while the winemakers receive an early cash flow. I felt very grown up and sophisticated and rather lucky [...]
Diving for wine in the ocean paradise of the Maldives March 7, 2025 You don’t think of the Maldives as a wine country. It’s dry for a start, and no vines grow on these sandy atolls. But exciting things are happening here. Emerald Maldives Resort and Spa have started aging wine on the sea floor and, to show there are no depths I will not go to for [...]
Libby’s Naked Wines diary: artful drinking in Mayfair March 5, 2025 Libby’s Naked Wines diary: this week, City AM’s wine columnist Libby Brodie is with Mayfair’s art set It was one of those events where everyone is the most interesting person in the room. A small gathering of London’s fashionable and fascinating to wish farewell to Stephen Webster’s Mount Street Salon, as he moves his London [...]
International Women’s Day: The future of women in wine March 3, 2025 This International Women’s Day, I caught up with Queena Wong, a wine enthusiast who is helping to reshape the industry for the better Queena Wong has become a controversial character in wine after spearheading the first UK Women in Wine Survey. According to marketing research agency PROOF Insight, 78 per cent of the women who [...]
Why Tasmania is Australia’s overlooked wine destination February 26, 2025 It was only four years ago I was served a glass of House of Arras, an exceptional sparkling wine, full of crystalline precision and refined fizz. I was surprised to hear it was from Tasmania. Before then, I knew very little about wines from this region. London is the most exciting marketplace for wine in [...]
Why The Gallivant is a wine-lover’s happy place February 25, 2025 Oh, The Gallivant, how I love you. I would say “let me count the ways” but there would be too many for this column’s wordcount. Despite my loving almost any excuse for a celebration, Valentines Day has not cut the proverbial mustard enough times and it has lost its lustre. Going out means sitting elbow [...]
Libby’s Naked Wines diary: why wine drinkers always crave beer February 19, 2025 Libby’s Naked Wines diary this week: why I’m craving beer after wine, and why we travel I first met Ashwin Bhardwaj in my living room 17 years ago. I had come through in the morning to make my shreddies and found a nearly naked chap in a tiny pair of pants, doing lunges. He had [...]